spun sugar peace
by fitzefitcher
Summary: Thrall and Jaina, and the rare moments of peace after the third war.
1. Chapter 1

a/n: Set between warcraft 3 and the start of WoW. an attempt to explain the shit that had to have gone on behind the scenes. initially starting writing this as a birthday present for kiango. it's been 3 years and I am terrible

* * *

It's fairly simple, as far as graves go.

There isn't really much time to spare; the Warsong still need to regroup and there are still demons and feral elves breathing down their necks, but Thrall just can't leave Grom like this, can't let his body lay and rot, and so, stone by stone, he lays out a primitive altar, a circle of rounded stones placed around the spot where Grom finally fell. His hands work numbly, mechanically as he moves Grom's heavy limbs into place, trying to give him some sort of dignity before they stiffen up. He places Gorehowl aside without really thinking about it, the weapon suddenly foreign to him.

There isn't any time to bury him, and there's far more left of him than there was of Taretha, the only thing remaining her head, buried in a hole under a tree far away from the newly-resurrected horde's camp where he wouldn't get caught. He remembers, abruptly, that orcs burn their dead, Grom wouldn't want to be buried, he would want to be burned, and staring at his stilled form, Thrall's head is numb and is throat is tight, vision blurring. Probably what would be the quickest would be asking for the aid of some fire elemental, but he can hardly think, let alone try and commune with something he's just barely come to understand.

He barely hears footsteps behind him, soft, wary tapping across scorched dirt and stopping just to the side of him.

Jaina says, "I'm sorry," and his whole body heaves, trying so desperately not to crumble. She sounds sincere, at least. He can't quite be sure because he can't even look at her right now. _Why- why is she here_ , he thinks, head sluggish but thoughts racing, too disjointed for him to keep up with himself. She looks between him and Grom, frowning, hesitant, and attempts to ask him something multiple times but unable to come up with anything each time she opens her mouth. It's not really surprising that she's speechless; watching the leader of what was up until a week ago her greatest enemies cry over something as inevitable as loss has to be strange experience.

"Orcs burn their dead," he croaks, voice breaking. "I can't-" He cuts off, throat closing up on him. She watches him warily for another moment before nodding grimly. In mere moments, there are blue flames licking at her fingers, Jaina whispering something he can't quite hear, and it streaks out of her hands, catching on Grom's clothing and consuming his body far quicker than fire really should. But it'll have to do; they have no time for anything else.

Afterwards, she continues to stand there, lingering while they both pointedly stare at his ashes and not at each other. He cannot speak, still numb with disbelief and despair. Hesitantly, she reaches a hand out, touches his arm, and says, "We- we can make a better one, later." He thinks he nods. He doesn't really remember much else.

They were not friends, then. The gesture seems out of place, just barely off the mark, but she still offered, and maybe this is what puts them on that track. When the world tree is in cinders, and Thrall and Jaina are clinging to each other, just relieved to be alive- it's not happiness, no, too raggedly driven the past few days to feel anything but the adrenaline and the come-down that is sure to follow- this is when it starts. This is when their friendship starts, truly, when they are in a command tent the night after Nordrassil has splintered into countless pieces, when Jaina is laughing on the verge of hysteric tears, so relieved is she, and Thrall is silent but cannot stop shaking, and they can do nothing but take from each other this tactile comfort.

This is too intimate, too trusting for what little they have, but after being run down demons and looking into the face of what was by all rights a demigod hell-bent on their destruction, this is a physicality he desperately needs. He nestles his nose in her blond hair, something that Taretha let him do even when he grew bigger than her, but Jaina is not Tari, and his heart wrenches in his chest because Taretha is dead, Orgrim is dead, Grom is dead; he can't even give himself the illusion that they aren't. Taretha's was a dry scent, one of crisp mint leaves and kindling, wood stoves and ash, and Jaina's is salt marshes and citrus, damp, heady and salty-sweet from sweat and strain. She is so jarringly not Taretha (She is not strawberry blond, she has freckles, _her head still sits atop her shoulders_ ) that he shudders and feels wrongwrong _wrong_ but Jaina keeps holding onto him, digs her fingers into his massive arms so much that it hurts, starts mumbling "It's alright, we're alright, we're alright," repeatedly, perhaps to herself more than him, but he still takes what comfort he can from her words.

Later, they stumble back to his cot (hers had been destroyed along with most of her forces' encampment, not that it would have stopped them from doing this) and just lay together, she draping herself across his chest and grounding him until he stops shaking, until the adrenaline finally wears off and he falls asleep. When he wakes up, it's only an hour or two later because despite his exhaustion he is still strung too tight, jerking awake with his heart pounding wildly in his chest. She is still there, eyes half-open, already trying to calm him with the same mantra as previous: "It's alright, we're alright, we're alright." It's quieter, this one, subdued and gentle from sleep, slower as she shushes him and runs her fingers through his thick, brown-black hair. She has him relaxed and sleep-drunk in minutes, soothing his stuttering rabbit heart back to an acceptable pace. He slumbers again, and when he awakes again at daybreak she is not there.

* * *

The construction of Orgrimmar continues as it should, and so does Theramore's, from what he's heard. There's a snag early on, in that for some reason, it keeps being forgotten that peons are in fact, people, and deserve to be treated as such. Thrall has to fight several times with the foremen in charge, remind them repeatedly that they shouldn't use whips or blackjacks as punishment, and still they look at him oddly, like there wasn't a twenty-year gap stuck wasting away in the internment camps being treated little better than slaves between this horde and the last one. The older ones cling to the old ways much harder than he'd like, and he fears that they'll rub off on this new horde.

He hasn't heard from Jaina personally since Hyjal, but this is probably because of each of them being so busy. Their cities will not construct themselves, after all, and their peoples need them. He tries not to let it bother him, but it's an awkward thought to have his last memory of her before their departure from Hyjal to be her literally sleeping in the same place as him, coaxing him back to rest. It doesn't sit well with him, alternating between missing the intimacy of their newly formed friendship, and disgust, deep-seated uneasiness prickling up his arms at the thought of anyone touching him, however gentle or rough they may be.

(When you meet your kin outside of an internment camp for the first time, their brusque tactility makes you flinch, trying not to jump out of your skin when Grom would clap a hand on your shoulder and grin crookedly at you. But he feels your whole body stiffen under his fingers, sees the alarm in your blue eyes that you couldn't quite swallow down, and his grin doesn't falter, no, but the next you fight human forces, there is a feral anger in his movement; it is not the bloodrage, entirely, it is the primordial anger that a possesses wolves guarding its cubs. Grom knew that Blackmoore did _something_ to you, even though you didn't tell him everything and the scars on your back are unseen. Orgrim's armor became walls to house you and the scars sealed under your skin, to cover all of yourself and the body whose green flesh still feels strange and out of place. Blackmoore did something to you, and Grom held all of humankind at fault for it.)

One thing he certainly didn't want to spring from their friendship was the inevitable rumors, but that did not make them any less inevitable. He is sure that they didn't see her leave his quarters at all- she was careful with that, at least- but they were not so subtle about getting there, both of them at only half capacity from sheer exhaustion. While their intentions and actions were perfectly innocent, the onlookers' certainly weren't, and suspected otherwise. Now when her name is brought up, it's with tones of suspicion or curiosity, sometimes both, sometimes with amusement. It's brought up with eyes on him while he tries to remain stoic, feeling pressed and irritated, wary and anxious like an animal pushed into a corner. He does not need this, and neither does she, new and untested rulers already put under fire.

Some of his advisors and ambassadors already hint at the subject, mostly grinding their teeth at the thought of even the flimsiest of alliances with the faction they had warred with for so long, but some, some pushing for stronger ties. They're gathered around a table in a large tent, the fortress outside still under construction. Thrall had insisted they build his people's homes, first.

"Dustwallow Marsh has the lumber we cannot get from Ashenvale," one mentions, an older orc, notoriously circuitous in his intentions. "And we have the food they cannot produce for themselves. A stronger bond with them would mean prosperity for both of us." He says this as if he's leading up to something, in a tone that Thrall is not entirely sure he appreciates. When humans assumed that orcs were not capable of greater intelligence, they were woefully wrong, and this one is an example of that, subtly clever and disarming in his presumed barbarism. He's is greying at his temples, strands of silver working their way through his blue-black hair, and his tusks are worn and yellowing. A spellcaster, perhaps, clothed in tattered robes and bearing a staff, but it's unsure as to what, exactly. Not all warlocks were welcomed back by the elements, and this would-be caster gives no hint as to where his talents lie. His name is Makhan.

"You would have us ally with those who attempted to destroy us? With those who killed countless of us and our allies?" a second one snarls from across the council table, the troll next to her nodding with her mouth twisted grimly around her tusks. This one is a warrior, leather armor adorning her athletic and battle-worn body, scars lining what little skin was exposed. A chunk of her ear is missing, and her eyes are still red, still bearing the burden of the blood rage. Kroshka is her name, all harsh sounds and snapping teeth. The troll, Tez'lipo, wears so little armor that the propriety human culture has taught him is hard to push down. Thrall is embarrassed for both for himself and her, but she is no less a warrior than the orc to her side, her size and musculature revealing her a berserker, her fire-bright hair wild and unruly. These two held on their sleeves what most of the common populace still suspected, that this would not last long, and that the humans were merely waiting for a moment to strike. Having the night elves to the north, a newly discovered faction, did not help this any.

"And how many more of us will die at the expense of old grudges? This cycle of violence will not stop until we choose to stop it, and we have already been shown that there are greater issues at hand than that," Makhan reminds, gently, firmly. "The Burning Legion has not forgotten about us, and there is no telling when they will return." Kroshka becomes absolutely livid, the troll a step just behind her.

"While true that may be," she allows, her fierceness showing even through the forced cordiality. "What are we to do if the humans were to decide just to take our land for themselves? What if the night elves decide that where we sit now is still too close to their precious forests?"

"Dey been playin' too nice with each other," Tez'lipo adds, her Orcish still thick with her native tongue. "Might think der not enough room fer us."

"Then we will have to make our treaties more permanent with a formal alliance," he persists. The other orc's frown deepens, and the troll laughs, a cynical bark erupting from her mouth.

"And how we gonna do this, ya think?" she sneers, her smirk more a subtle baring of sharp teeth than anything else. "Dey trust us about as much as we trust dem, and dat's bein' kind."

"Being _civil_ with each other is a good start," Makhan scolds none-too-subtly, and Thrall can already feel a deep migraine growing from where this line of conversation is headed. They're all tired and irritable, and he can sense that this will probably end badly if he doesn't step in.

Kroshka looks moments away from flying into a rage, and Tez'lipo looks like she's about to say exactly what's on her mind; a thinly veiled threat, he suspects, one that assures imminent violence and he doesn't doubt her following through with it.

"That's enough," he states sternly. "As of now, what we have to worry about the most is making sure that the city's construction continues as planned. The lumber that the Warsong have already gathered for us should suffice for now, and there are already discussions of trade agreements with Theramore underway. But right now, what is most important is making sure that our peoples have a place to rest their heads."

None of them look too happy about having to leave this discussion- Makhan especially, frowning deeply around his tusks- but they manage to move away from the subject, ultimately putting their trust in his judgment. Somehow, this is a still a surprise even now that they do this, that they find him worthy of their trust, let alone be worthy of being their leader. He still feels estranged from his people in most ways- humans would've put up more of a fight if they felt something was wrong, but orcs seem to respect authority a good deal more than humans ever did, standing down as soon as Thrall exerts his rank. Maybe this is because the only human leader he ever experienced was Blackmoore, all who were under him rebelling quietly in what ways they could, and from what he's learned orcs tend to only disprove of their leaders if they find them weak or said leader is actively destroying their people, to which they react like they do to most problems: by killing whatever it is.

They do manage to finish discussing what needs to be addressed, but he doubts that any of them will let go what he cut them off from, and wonders if Jaina has to deal with the joys of squabbling councilors as much as he does.

* * *

As it turns out, she does in fact deal with them, even more than he does.

He gets his first letter from her a few days after the construction of Grommash Hold is completed, and they have moved onto focusing entirely on constructing the remaining houses and shops. They had gotten about halfway through the houses before several of his newly-elected advisors and military leaders insisted that the fort be constructed.

"It's just not wise to have no form of protection, even if we're supposed to be at peace," Nazgrel had groused. "And besides, the Warchief needs somewhere to lay his head, too. One that isn't a tent." Surprisingly, there's more nods of agreement with the second reason than the first, and Thrall isn't sure if he should be flattered or concerned. The hold is built swiftly, all the same.

Her message is waiting for him in his chambers on his desk, on plain parchment, folded neatly and wrapped in plain, brown twine. It's not the only one there, another more official-looking with Theramore's gold seal on a clean, white envelope. That one is the official correspondence, probably, and the first a personal message from Jaina herself. He opens that first, sitting down at the desk in a chair that doesn't creak under his weight. It was made for him, made to accommodate his size, and this is still something so strange to encounter, too used to everything becoming so fragile under his thick, too-large fingers. He has never forgotten that he's not human, but that didn't mean that he felt particularly orcish, either. He still doesn't feel quite like either, pulled too much one way and then the other, stretched out of shape until he couldn't fit anywhere.

(He misses Grom and Taretha. They made things fit, moving things around until there was a space for him. Brother, Grom had called him, despite being old enough to have been his father. Brother, Taretha had called him, both of them knowing fully well that she was human and he was not. It's funny how Grom managed to be a better parent in the couple months that he had known him, that Taretha cared for him better in the limited ways she could, through secret letters and hidden books, than in the entire span of the twenty-something years Blackmoore had raised him, and now he has neither father, brother, or sister.)

 _Building on the marsh is going to be difficult_ , Jaina writes. _But it's nothing we can't handle. I hope things are going well for you, too, and that this letter finds you safely._

Jaina goes on to explain how they managed to find a dry patch of land; a small island just off of the coast of the marsh where the wet ground didn't try to pull everything into it. It's tedious to put down the foundations, but it goes relatively smoothly from there, the only snag she's hit being her incredibly aggravating councilors. Rumors have spread there as well, only they are not so subtle, and more than once she has had to chew out her councilors for not leaving things well enough alone. Enough soldiers had seen her wander away with him that it gave them cause to suspect her, apparently, and guilt pools under his tongue, uncomfortably warm.

 _I don't regret taking them with me when we fled Lordaeron, but it is very tempting to freeze their mouths shut whenever they start talking,_ she continues, bitter humor in every word. _Apparently they'll only respect me as a leader so long as my 'purity' is unquestioned, ignoring that I carted those ungrateful old bastards across the entire damned ocean. I expected difficulties but none like this. Don't you worry, though, it's nothing that I can't handle or haven't already dealt with. Dalaran was packed to bursting with arrogant old men who think little girls shouldn't play with magic, and now they're just angry that a little girl was the one who saved them._

He smiles a bit, curiously impressed at her tenacity. He hasn't known her that long, not really, but he doesn't doubt her in this, somehow. He figures, well, if she can take down demons two and three times her size, she can take on opponents such as these, even if she can't set them alight with her frost-fire.

 _I think they're just having a difficult time because they didn't expect for us to have to set up a permanent settlement here,_ she continues. _I don't really blame them_. Thrall doesn't, either.

 _I pray that things are going easier for you than they are for me,_ she finishes. _Take care, my friend. Write back when you can._

Her sincerity is a welcome comfort, he still a bit squeamish and unsure of the whole affair. He hadn't been sure where they stood after he had woken up to her being gone, but her candidness is reassuring.

When he writes back, it feels good to tell her, _I hope things are going well for you, too, my friend. Take care._

* * *

Letters from Jaina after that are few and far between, sparse and hurried, but he doesn't begrudge her for it- it's not as if he's much better, scribbling a sentence or two when he manages to remember past the bone-deep exhaustion from the day. He can imagine the headache it is just to find somewhere to build in the marsh. Cairne and the tauren referred to it as Dustwallow, and he can easily imagine why; a brown and seemingly deadened marsh, stuck in an awkward corner between a swath of dry wastes where all the winds come to meet, growing off of the dead things that are blown into its waters, whether it's things from the deserts coming to die or an unwary denizen of the marsh becoming part of the marsh, themselves.

From what few letters he gets from Jaina, there is something odd about the marsh that draws her to it, something she can't quite explain, and Thrall would say that he knows the feeling, but he's not so sure if humans have the sight, at least not in the same way that orcs or tauren or trolls can. They have their magic, sure, but from what he understands, it's something that they measure and calculate, something that they know the precise outcome of as if it were a mere science. The Light is something closer, he's sure, but not quite the same, a different force and different rules from the elements. It was still a rather odd thing, coming from these two extremes to an entirely new concept of what magic could be, another life-force and cycle of nature, something that couldn't be predicted or calculated because it ran on rules outside of their understanding and control. Light is a force, and the Arcane a tool, but the Elements are sentient, alive and unruly, and Thrall has no trouble remembering that with every flood, every wildfire, every other disaster that seems to strike at Durotar. His people shrug it off easily, seeming more at home here, where the elements seem so much closer than they ever were in the Eastern Kingdoms.

It is likewise, apparently, that made Jaina see fit to set up on the island they had found not too far from the shore of Dustwallow. The construction will be harder, she says, with the rocky shore, but it just "feels right here," something about it pulling her towards it in ways she cannot ignore.

(In another letter, when Theramore has completed construction and Orgrimmar is barely a quarter of the way done, she explains it as ley lines crossing underneath the isle, roots in the world where magic runs deep, and Thrall thinks maybe all their magicks aren't quite so different as they think.)

* * *

When he sees her next, it's after her father is dead.

It's after the siege of Theramore, after Rexxar has cut down Daelin Proudmoore and Jaina could do nothing but watch, when Thrall is finally able to meet with her face to face. He is much more stable this time, and she is not, stance stiff and jaw clenched bone-white. They're not even in the city, wandering the rocky shore just outside it because Jaina just needed to "get some fresh air," presumably because Admiral Proudmoore's corpse still lay inside. She was not the one to kill her father, no, not directly, but it does not make him any less dead.

"I tried to talk to him beforehand," she says, smiling weakly, voice wavering. "You know? Tried to talk him out of it. But I couldn't… get him to listen to me." She can't seem to look Thrall in the face, eyes trained to the brown sand beneath their feet, and the first words out of his mouth are "It wasn't your fault."

Jaina flinches.

These are the first words he's said to her in a few months- each too busy with their own duties, but not far from each other's thoughts (not too far from his at least)- and however true they are, he thinks maybe he should have gone with something different to start with. Certainly not ones that made him recoil inwardly as soon as he said them.

"Jaina, it wasn't your fault," he persists. "He made his own decisions, not you," he adds, placing one of his massive hands on her shoulder. She crumbles upon his touch, only taking moments before just short of collapsing into him, grasping the front of his armor with ink-stained fingers and hiding her face in his collarbone.

Jaina is no more Taretha than she was before, he can't help but think, perhaps even less so this time, in all things: Taretha's strength was an enduring one, bending but never breaking, and Jaina's is more continuing in the face of being broken, picking up pieces when she can. The route of the issue is still Taretha, however, and these intrusive thoughts of her, as he cannot quite remove her image from Jaina's, despite Jaina's freckles, her rounder face, and heavier body. Taretha had always been slender, and so, so much smaller than him, barely reaching his chest when he last saw her and so thin he could wrap his fingers around her waist and the tips would touch. Blackmoore kept the Foxtons fed, yes, but not as well as he could have, and Thrall is certain he would not be able to do the same with Jaina, to wrap his hands around her waist and have them touch and this is a very dangerous road to go down, he realizes distantly, shoving it out of his head.

"He wouldn't- he wouldn't listen to me," she tries to explain, words unsure and shaky. "I tried to stop him, but he wouldn't listen and-"

"Jaina," he interrupts. "This is not your fault." Jaina shudders at this, as if he had struck her, and when she looks up at him, her face is ruddy and tear-streaked, and his arms snap into place around her waist before he can think about it. It occurs to him that perhaps the black plate armor would probably be uncomfortable, at least to her, but she doesn't seem to mind it, burrowing back into him, trying to muffle her crying as it wracks her body. He holds her like this for a long while, long enough that it should be uncomfortable, but he's more uneasy about how it isn't. _Stop,_ he thinks, _stop focusing on that. You need to help her. Do what she needs to recover._

He breathes in slowly, trying to soothe his rattled nerves.

"Listen," he starts. "You didn't do anything wrong. You did all that you could do." Jaina won't stop shaking, silent but for her breath stuttering out her mouth. "You did what you thought was right. You tried. That's what counts."

"I can't really believe you," she mumbles. "A lot of people I was supposed to protect are dead because I couldn't stop him."

"Your father's actions aren't your responsibility," he asserts. She shakes her head, and pushes away from him, still shaking from the tears.

"I couldn't stop him," she starts. "And I couldn't stop Arthas. What good am I as a leader if I can't even keep my own people safe from harm?"

At her mentioning Arthas, Thrall realizes that this is going to be much trickier than he initially thought. He doesn't know too much about him; understandably, Jaina hasn't really spoken of him that much, only enough for Thrall to get a bare bones understanding of what had happened, and why she was here in the first place. There were a lot of things left unsaid in the wake of Arthas' abrupt and horrifying turning on them, in Jaina's desperate attempt to gather up all the Lordaeron survivors and ferry them away from the wake of his destruction.

Thrall sits them down on the sand, and he tells her about Blackmoore.

He tells her about the internment camps, and Durnholde, about the few people he'd befriended there, how they'd died in its subsequent destruction. He tells her about Taretha. He tells her about Grom. In return, she tells him about Arthas. It's not really an enjoyable affair in any sense, but it's not entirely unpleasant, either. The subject matter is, definitely, but he can at least appreciate the sense of trust and comfort between them. It's not something he's felt in a long time, and he's missed it more than he would really like to admit.

They talk for hours, long into the night, and soon it's just them and the stars, sitting quietly side by side while the ocean laps gently at the shore. At some point, he placed his hand on the sand between them, however little a space that was, and she placed her own over his, small fingers perpetually strained with ink lacing between his large, calloused ones. It's only a few hours before dawn when they say their goodbyes, and his hands still feel a strange, radiating warmth, even after they've been parted, and until he falls asleep, fingers prickling right up until sleep takes him for the little night left.

* * *

He doesn't receive another letter from her for a couple months.

Theramore needs time to recover, of course, and Orgrimmar still isn't quite done, so of course they're both busy, but he can't help but feel as if he's done something wrong, or there's some boundary that he crossed without realizing. Rationally, he realizes he's probably overreacting, that yes, this is going to take some time, but it's something that nags at him incessantly and intrudes on his thoughts the moment he lets his mind wander.

When a letter finally comes from Jaina, outside of official correspondence that is (and this was somehow worse than receiving no letters at all- getting stiff, formal messages that told him little if any of what she could actually be thinking), Thrall receives, alongside the letter, an odd, lumpy package about the size of his palm, wrapped in flimsy brown paper and twine. The polite thing to do would be to read the letter first, then to open the package, so he does, despite the anxious curiosity eating at him as he eyes it up.

She writes, _I figured using these would be easier than writing letters back and forth. You activate it by touching the rune, and we should be able to speak through these to communicate instead of waiting days at a time. At the very least, it should be good for emergencies._

He can't help but feel a twinge of guilt at this. It'd taken him days to get into contact with her when Kul Tiras forces had landed, and maybe if he'd gotten to her faster, they could have stopped the whole thing before it truly started. (Maybe her father would still be alive.)

 _You don't have to use it if you don't want to, but please at least use it just once so that I know that it works. Try after supper-time; I'm the least busy around then._

After that, there's nothing else, and Thrall wastes no time in opening the package now, carefully untying the twine and peeling off the paper. What he finds under the layers of wrapping paper is a smooth, greyish-white stone that can fit in the palm of his hand, with a swirling, white rune carved into the front. It's a good deal paler than the rest of the stone, and glows very, very faintly when he grasps it between his fingers. The sun is down now, and it's well past mealtime; it should be alright to see if it works. He traces his thumb over the grooves of the rune, and it lights up under his touch, a soft hum emanating from it.

A minute or so passes, the stone continuing to hum, and he begins to get a little uneasy. The hum fades out, the stone's glow diminishing, and he's disappointed for all of thirty seconds before he can hear Jaina's voice emanating from the stone.

"Hello?" she whispers, tentative.

"Jaina," Thrall replies, far more relieved than he'd like to admit.

"Oh good, it works," she states, pleased. "Everything sound alright on your end?"

"Yes, I can hear you just fine," he confirms, a smile curling the corners of his mouth.

"Excellent. Now that that's out of the way, how are you doing?" she asks. Before he can answer, she quickly amends her statement with, "If- if you want to talk, that is. It's alright if you don't; I'm just glad to know that the gossip stones are working properly," a little hesitant and half-mumbled. There's another few moments of silence, and again, Thrall gets no chance to reply, Jaina speaking again.

"I know I haven't… been around, as of late. I'm sorry," she says, even quieter than before.

"You don't have to apologize, Jaina," he replies. "It's alright." She's silent again but for her breath, and it takes a few moments for her to respond.

"If you're sure," she allows, still hesitant.

"I am," he states firmly. "And to answer your previous question, I'm doing fine."

"I'm glad to hear it, friend," she tells him, and he can hear the smile in her voice as she says this. It's better to hear those words than to read them, Thrall finds, and they end up talking long into the night. Thrall is exhausted the next day, more so than he has been as of late, but it's not something that bothers him, apparently, looking forward to when he can speak with her next.

* * *

Trade continues to be a difficult thing to fix, and his councilors are doing their best to make it near-impossible. Thrall keeps putting it off as long as he can; the city's construction is still underway, technically, and that by itself should keep them occupied for now. Not for much longer, he laments; the city is nearly complete, now, only a few remaining buildings left. Jaina's having about the same difficulties, though instead of being pressured to build up her forces and attack, she was being pressured to ally with the night elves, then to use that alliance to build up her forces and attack.

"Honestly, it's as if they've all forgotten that we killed that legion lord together," she vents. "Or, you know, that we killed a legion lord at all. There's more important things to worry about, here." She pauses for a moment, and briefly Thrall only hears the faint hum of magic from the stone.

"How are things going over there, by the by?" she asks. "Surely you must be doing better than me," she adds, laughing.

"About the same," he replies. "There isn't a day that goes by where they don't argue about the truce. Sometimes they go on for hours." Jaina sighs.

"I feel like I've been stuck in this tower my entire life. I don't think I remember what the outside world looks like." Jaina jokes melodramatically. When Thrall chuckles, she follows up with "How dare you laugh at my pain," mock-serious, but she can't keep the laughter out of her voice.

"Alright, I think it's more than clear that we both need to get some fresh air," she says after another pause. She hums thoughtfully. "How do you feel about sneaking out? Just for a little while." Thrall hesitates.

"…how?" he asks after a moment of silence. "I know we're neighbors, but Orgrimmar and Theramore aren't exactly right next door to each other."

"Well," Jaina starts. "I could come get you? I mean, I could teleport over there to get you, and then we could go from there. Only if you wanted to, of course." He thinks for a moment. The sun had gone down but only recently, no longer sinking at the edge of the horizon but its warmth lingering still. The moon is big and bright against the sea of blue-black sky, a soft breeze blowing through the night, and he can't deny that the thought is very tempting, feeling as though the wind is tugging at him as it sweeps through. He'd gotten all that he could've gotten done today, he reasoned, and it would just be for a little while. A few hours maybe, if that. Surely nobody would mind him straying for a little while.

"Alright," he agrees. "Just for a little while."

"Of course," she agrees, and he can hear the smile in her voice, infectious and affectionate. The hum of the stone goes silent suddenly, and when it's followed by a flash of blue light not two feet away from him, he realizes, oh, she meant literally right this minute.

She seems to materialize out of thin air, no sound other than the soft tap of her feet landing on the ground below them. She reaches a hand out to him, gestures for him to come with, and it's an awkward moment of hastily getting up from his desk and taking her hand without knocking everything to the floor with a clatter. She pulls him through the tear she's left mid-air, and there's a strange sort of tugging on his bones as he passes through the portal. The change is abrupt, the air now humid and warm, reeking of salt. They're in Dustwallow, apparently, on the shore and not too far from Theramore, judging by the lights twinkling in the windows of her mage tower and the town surrounding it on the horizon.

The portal behind them closes soundlessly, folding in on itself and distorting everything around it as it disappears. The blue light fades out, leaving little discolored spots in his vision from it. Jaina dusts herself off briskly, then starts walking through the line crooked trees dotting the edge of the swamp, motioning for him to follow.

"We'll have some privacy over here," she tells him quietly, holding in an impish grin. "It's where I go when I need to have some time to myself to think."

"And here I thought you hadn't been out of that tower in months," Thrall points out, the corners of his mouth curling up in turn.

"Oh hush," she replies, playfully annoyed. "What they don't know won't hurt them," she says, pointing over her shoulder back at the city, now hidden by the trees. "They don't need to know about me sneaking out every once in a while to get some fresh air."

"Oh, I'm sure," he replies mock-seriously, raising his eyebrows at her. She very maturely sticks her tongue out at him.

"Anyway, it's right through here," she says, continuing to lead him through the swamp along a path he cannot see, covered with roots and underbrush. The trees become taller and denser the deeper they go in, alarmingly quickly for how little time it takes them to get there. She leads them to a tiny, secluded glen- a nook hidden away in a corner of the marsh formed by thick trees clustered together in an uneven circle. There's a little window to the sky out the top, in between the layers of branches and leaves, and moonlight streams in, lighting up the whole glen.

"How did you find this place?" he asks. Jaina shrugs.

"I don't know, I just sort of found it," she tells him. "One night after a council meeting, I was still… frustrated with them, so I just teleported out here to cool down."

"Would you have started casting fireballs, otherwise?" he asks, chuckling.

"The possibility was definitely there," she says, exasperated. "Smartass," she adds, mumbling. He continues to laugh, keeping direct eye contact as he does. "But anyway, I found this place when I decided to take a walk through the woods. Something about it drew me here." Thrall eyes the forest floor. Pale little mushrooms poke out among the tree roots and underbrush, forming a circle around the glen. They glow, slightly, in the dark, and he cannot tell if that's truly them, or the moonlight, or both, but there's something ethereal about them, all the same.

They talk for a little while and catch up, but it's only a matter of time before they're drawn back to politics and the goings-on of their respective factions; to be fair, it's all either of them has really been dealing with as of late.

"I'm starting to worry about Tyrande," Jaina says after a short lull in the conversation. "I haven't been hearing that much from her, and what I've been hearing hasn't exactly been… pleasant."

"What's wrong?" he asks. He isn't really at liberty to communicate with Tyrande, for rather obvious reasons despite technically being closer to her than Jaina is, but he still hoped to consider them friends, despite all this.

"Apparently, not many of the night elves are happy that their immortality's gone now," she starts. Thrall cringes inwardly, though apparently it's not as inwardly as he would've hoped because then she adds, "It's probably about as bad as you think it is," an odd little half-smirk forming on her face. It's not as if she's taking joy out of this; this is more exasperated sympathy than anything else.

"What exactly is happening?" he asks.

"Well, among other things, the druid that's replaced Malfurion wants to plant a new world tree, to try and salvage their immortality," she explains, wincing a bit.

"That's understandable," Thrall replies.

"It would be, were it not for the fact that, according to what Tyrande's told me, it absolutely will not work, but with Malfurion stuck in the dream, he's garnering support."

"That's… worrisome," he admits, cynical. At seeing Jaina's hesitance, however, he quickly amends this with, "I'm sure Tyrande will be able to handle them. She is strong enough to stand on her own." It doesn't really do much to alleviate the anxiety creeping over Jaina's face, and doesn't do much to alleviate his own, either. For one agonizingly long minute, it's quiet, until Jaina says:

"Do you think we did the right thing?" She's biting her lower lip, and suddenly her cloak is seeming much too big for her, hiding her face easily beneath its hood, her eyes a bright blue glint in the dim murk. "With- with the world tree, I mean. Do you think we could've done it some other way?"

Thrall hesitates, for a moment, speechless at the thought of this. He mulls it over for another moment, wracking his brain to try and think of anything they possibly could have done instead of that, and every passing tic only seems to thicken the tension that manifested itself from the evening mist. Jaina's still looking at him through it, but she can't seem to meet his gaze for more than a few seconds at a time, shame and guilt lining every fold of her cloak.

"We did what we could, Jaina," he says finally. "The Kaldorei knew what had to be done and accepted. They knew the cost." She nods, but doesn't look convinced. He reaches his hands out, pausing briefly just before they meet her shoulders and checking to see if she flinches before placing them there, palms enveloping them entirely, easily. It doesn't seem so out of place, oddly enough- not as much as it used to, anyway.

"If there had been another way, we would have found it," he tells her, softly. She sniffs, probably a little louder than she really meant to for how embarrassment flickers across her face, but tears don't start rolling down her cheeks, her eyes don't become red and watery.

"Alright," she accepts, finally- accepts it the best she can, to be sure. He takes her into his arms, gently- it seems to be the right thing to do, here, for some reason- and she clings to him hard, freckled arms snaking around his waist, surprising him with the amount of force behind them and sending a little jolt through him.

"Thank you," she starts, fingers clenched where they sat on top of his shoulder blades through the fabric of the plain clothes he wore. "For being there for me."

"I know you would have done the same for me, Jaina," he replies easily, throat warm, blood thrumming in his veins. She smiles earnestly at him, sighing a little, and he can't quite swallow, for some reason.

They end up stargazing for another hour or two before returning, the odd warmth lingering long after they return, prickling in his throat and the tips of his fingers.


	2. Chapter 2

dedicated to a couple people:  
for kiango: an extremely belated birthday gift, my bad I'm sorry lmao  
for wckm: thank you for letting me talk w/ you about this and keeping the thraina fire going strong  
and for the author of "gallows humor": I don't know if you'll ever come across this, or if you're still interested in warcraft at all, but if you ever find this, I want to you to know that your writing has been a huge inspiration for me, and is what prompted me to start writing seriously in the first place. I know that that fic has long since been taken down, but it'd been a favorite of mine for years, and it was something I always came back to over and over. thank you.

* * *

Naturally, no one is happy about his little excursion.

The portal is barely gone a minute and Jaina with it, before a frantic shaman bursts into his chambers, accompanied by several harried-looking Kor'kron.

"Warchief!" they cried. "You've returned!" Thrall does his best not to freeze in place like a frightened deer, but he's not sure that it works so well; the Kor'kron are looking supremely irritated, and him looking like they caught him red-handed probably does nothing to help, because they did, in fact, catch him red-handed. Nearly, anyway.

"Where have you been?" the shaman demands, pulling down their wolf-skin hood. It's one of the younger ones, baby fat still rounding out their face, and eyes looking a little wet and bloodshot. He does feel a little bad at that, but really, he couldn't have been gone for more than a couple hours; all this fuss is really unnecessary.

"I just went for a walk," he tells them. It's not a lie, technically, but one of the Kor'kron still looks like she'd like to strangle him.

"Warchief, there was a sudden pull of magic coming from your chambers, and when it dispersed, your presence was gone. We couldn't sense your presence again until just now, when the same pull of magic returned," the shaman continues, and it's a truly impressive amount of effort to keep his face impassive during this.

"Listen," he explains. "All I did was go for a walk. I'm sorry to have caused you such distress, but I'm alright. I just needed to get some fresh air." The same Kor'kron who looked like she wanted to strangle him still does, apparently, because her face twists further in agitation.

"You don't get to do that," she snaps after another moment. He blinks, surprised, and she looks a little surprised with herself too, but she keeps going. "You don't- you don't get to just disappear like that and then act like it wasn't a big deal. You're Warchief, you don't get to be this irresponsible- you're too important." She's shaking, a little bit; probably fearing reprimand for speaking out of line to the Warchief himself, echoes of the old ways still ringing throughout this new horde. He'll have to do something about that.

"No," he starts. "You're right. I shouldn't have wandered off without telling anyone, and I apologize. Please forgive me," he says gently, bowing his head slightly. The effect is probably lessened slightly by the fact that he's taller than most, and in fact can see over the top of the Kor'kron's head, but he thinks he got the point across, shocked disbelief spreading over the features of both the teary-eyed shaman and their Kor'kron escort, including the one that had stood up to him.

"Just don't do it again," she grumbles. He smiles, a little resigned, knowing fully well that this is just going to make matters more complicated.

* * *

It doesn't take long for rumors to circulate.

People learn relatively quickly that their Warchief did indeed sneak out for a couple hours, and managed to do so by completely disappearing from the sight of his guards, somehow. There's some whispers that he was taken forcibly, but those ones die down just as soon as they spring up. He was quick to say that it was voluntary, after all, and there's not many that would question his strength should he be cornered by an enemy. However, there's still a question of how he could slip away from his guards so easily, and some of the shrewder ones start to suspect that magic was involved. Maybe not the elements, who might be able to mask his presence but not snuff it out completely, but arcane, which was apparently very capable of doing that, and it's not long for those same discerning gossips to put two and two together.

Predictably, it does absolutely nothing to help the situation, and his staff all have very strong opinions about it, even if some of them happen to never share those opinions.

At the next couple council meetings, it becomes extremely apparent what they all think about it, even if the topic is never confronted directly. Kroshka and Tez'lipo both side-eye him a little exasperatedly, but it looks as if the thought of confronting this is too exhausting to actually do so. Makhan is looking very much like the cat that got the canary, and his smugness about it grates on Thrall ever so slightly, not enough to actually be problem but enough to be a constant annoyance nipping at his shrinking patience. Balmani, the Tauren councilor, is thankfully neutral, or at least blissfully unaware, because she acts no different than how she would normally. She doesn't seem the type to be oblivious, though; there's definitely more to her than she lets on, quiet and gentle but incredibly sharp. She doesn't appear to care, either way, and it's mostly because of her that the meetings can continue as they should rather than be interrupted by any of the others, regardless of their intention.

Nazgrel looks like he wants to smack him around a little bit, if only to "knock some sense into that dense head of his," and tells him so.

"You could have been seriously hurt, you know that?" he gripes, loudly. This isn't the first time he's said this, and it probably won't be the last. "If you want to go run off somewhere with that Proudmoore woman, _fine_ , just at least tell us, first."

"Are you giving me permission?" Thrall asks, incredibly exhausted with the whole thing and really not meaning to tease, but Nazgrel still responds like Thrall's being cheeky: with a smack to the head. It's not hard, mind (not that hard, anyway), but it still startles him, and he's swearing colorfully under his breath not moments later.

"Don't be a wiseass," Nazgrel grumps. "What if you actually had been taken and no one knew how to find you? What if you had died? This new horde's still too young and untested; it'd fall apart without you." Thrall squints at him, back of his head still smarting. He can't even respond before Nazgrel goes, "Yes, it would, don't fight me on this, you know it would. Give yourself a little credit, _Warchief_." The emphasis on 'Warchief' is entirely unnecessary, but he gets the point he's trying to make. The thought of it scares him a little bit, that they're still so fragile that he being gone would make the whole thing fall apart.

"And besides," he continues. "None of us want to see you go down if we could have prevented the whole thing to begin with." The older orc isn't happy with him, obviously, but it's becoming clear that it's less that he's mad and more that he's incredibly, incredibly worried. He's more hurt than angry, and Thrall once again feels bad for, admittedly, running off like some stupid kid.

When he apologizes, Nazgrel just grumbles at him, but it seems to appease him nonetheless. The other councilors, however, are not so easily satisfied. Makhan even makes it a point of bringing it up at a council meeting, the only way he knows how: by circling it passively the entire time without actively confronting his main point.

"This whole affair has really brought to light how lax our security is as far as magic goes," he says, perfectly reasonable. "I think we should set up some kind of arcane blocking field around Orgrimmar that limits where people can teleport into the city." Kroshka for once agrees with him, to her slight disdain, and Thrall waits for the other shoe to drop.

"He's got a point. How are we supposed to defend ourselves if just anyone can teleport themselves to Grommosh Hold's inner chambers?" she points out, and Makhan nods, continuing. No one says it's Jaina, but they are absolutely thinking it's Jaina, Kroshka looking irritable and Tez'lipo sitting between that and odd amusement. Balmani is peaceful as always but there's a wry sort of glint to her eye, and Makhan is inexplicably pleased with himself.

"Exactly. It leaves us open to any assortment of attacks." Tez'lipo tilts her head, thinking.

"The Darkspear have users of the arcane among us, but I'm not so sure dey would be willing to share der secrets," she explains. "I will speak to Vol'jin about this."

"Thank you, friend," Thrall tells her genuinely. "Please send Vol'jin my regards as well." She nods, temper soothed somewhat by his sincerity. It is immediately kicked back up again not moments later, when Makhan says:

"That is a decent start, but I think we have some options that we're not looking at, here." Thrall suddenly has the abrupt, sort of resigned understanding that the metaphorical other shoe was going to drop any second now, and there wasn't really anything he could do to stop it. He looks at Makhan, and he just knows shit's about to get real weird, real fast.

"I think that we should seek help from our other allies as well," he says. "To further strengthen our bonds." There's a drawn-out pause.

"…What do you mean?" Kroshka asks, eyes narrowed. She looks like she knows _exactly_ what he's getting at- and she doesn't like it. Asking him directly was probably a last attempt to get him to rethink what he was thinking. It is absolutely not going to dissuade him, and she knows it. They all know it.

"What I mean to say is that," he starts again, seemingly drawing it out as long as possible for no reason other than to fuck with Thrall, specifically. "I think that reaching out to the Lady Proudmoore herself would be a wise decision, given that she is an expert on the arcane."

And there it is, the other shoe. Things are quiet for about four seconds, before:

 _"Are you out of your mind?!_ " Kroshka demands, just short of actually yelling. Thrall had been expecting the noise so he doesn't flinch; there's that small mercy, at least. He's pretty good about not recoiling nowadays, but there were still a couple of fun times where he wasn't, and was quick to make up for it by raising his voice as well to reaffirm his strength in the eyes of his peers. He hates raising his voice, however, and it is painfully apparent to everyone around him for how quick his rage bubbles up after that, hating that he has to do this and hating that he flinched in the first place.

It was something that Grom had picked up on quickly, not that he had to try too hard for how embarrassingly obvious it was; Thrall, who was not yet twenty, hackles raised and defensive, and not just fury in his eyes but fear, making him look wild and unhinged. He doesn't even remember what Grom had been talking about, just that he'd gotten a bit too loud and something about it skirted too close to a not-yet buried instinct to recoil back like Grom was going to throw something at him, and Thrall hesitating a second too long before reacting. He noticed it, he knows he noticed it, and instead of ridiculing him like he'd expected (like what had happened many times over before, with others, orc and human alike), Grom just never addressed it.

He noticed, after that, that Grom never got past a certain volume with his anger, at least not with him. He'd watch him explode at other people, but that was something Thrall never received. He could see it, too; he could see Grom very nearly vibrating with the sheer amount of restraint it took not to blow up at him, too, but he never did, not past a certain point, anyway. It was equal parts touching and frustrating, glad that Grom was being oddly considerate but frustrated with his own weakness. He shouldn't have to cater to him at all, yet still he did.

Kroshka eyes him briefly before moving her attention back to Makhan. At some point, his staff have picked up on it too, Kor'kron included, and he's not really sure how he feels about that. He's sure that Grom didn't say anything to them directly, at any rate, because he never told Grom anything directly. He didn't really have the capacity to. Not yet, anyway. He might have later, had Grom lived long enough. The thought stings more than expected. He swallows his grief back down.

He was apparently stoic enough that his councilors didn't notice his brief moment of inattention and continued with the argument. Kroshka's got her focus fully on Makhan now, reflexively baring her teeth even when she isn't speaking.

"The Lady Proudmoore is our ally, and has the expertise we do not on this matter," he goes on to explain, in a manner that he probably sees as calming but Kroshka definitely hears as patronizing.

"I _know_ that, councilor, do not mistake me for a fool," Kroshka snaps. "I just don't think it wise to entrust this entirely to her when we know next to nothing about it, and she will have the advantage of learning every weakness in Orgrimmar's defense just to set up the stupid thing."

"Theramore is our ally- we must be willing to trust that she won't," he persists, meeting her glare head-on, very deliberately calm. "Besides- do we not already know Theramore's weaknesses, from taking the city back from Admiral Proudmoore? Is this not just an equal exchange, the defense of her city for the defense of ours?" The growing friction between them unsettles the rest of the room little by little, the guards fidgeting at their posts. As much as Thrall hates to admit, whereas he knows beyond a shadow of a doubt that Jaina would never use this knowledge against them, they're right in being suspicious. It's too precious a thing to just give blindly, and while she might not even think of it, someone else might. The thought is exhausting.

"We don't have to make the decision right now," Balmani reminds them gently. "We could just ask for advice- and for help if we needed it. But she and her Archmages don't need to see every corner of the city for just some simple advice." The two arguing orcs manage drag themselves away from their impromptu stare-down, and regard her thoughtfully. Tez'lipo, who'd been pensive for the most part, grimaces.

"And we can bring in the Darkspear arcanists, too- see what works best for us," she adds. Tez'lipo purses her lips, and remains silent another moment.

"…It be a fair compromise," she admits grudgingly. Thrall blinks, surprised. Kroshka looks absolutely betrayed, and Makhan looks about ready to swoop in for the kill, looking insufferably pleased with himself. "I will contact Vol'jin as soon as I can."

"That settles it, then," Thrall states with a note of finality, before Makhan tries to push for more and starts an actual fight between himself and Kroshka. Kroshka looks at him, alternating between pleading and infuriated, but ultimately gives. She makes no attempt to hide her displeasure, and Thrall would've called it pouting had she been much younger. Makhan goes to open his mouth, but Thrall shoots him a warning look, and it snaps shut right quick. For once, he is glad that he has the sort of misplaced reverence that he does, if only to solve squabbles quickly. He'll get used to it eventually, he muses.

* * *

Because life is the way it is (and how it seems to enjoy being especially difficult and spiteful as of late), no sooner do they start to set up meetings to discuss construction of the barrier- not even the construction itself, just the talks to start the stupid thing- does yet another thing get dropped into his lap. Emissaries arrive from across the sea to contact him and other horde leaders in hopes of forming an alliance. However, the thing about these emissaries is that they're all undead.

"I come representing Lady Sylvanas Windrunner and the Forsaken," this one says, her Orcish remarkably articulate given that her jaw has clearly been replaced, the stark, bleached white of the bone standing out against the dingy grey of the rest of her exposed skeleton. Objectively, it's not really that much- just the jaw and her arms from the elbow down- but the fact of the matter is, there shouldn't be anything exposed at all, and this coupled with the rest of her appearance- skin pallid and corpse purple, tips of her finger bones still sharp as a ghoul's, topped off with glowing yellow eyes- makes for a truly unsettling sight, indeed.

He'd caught them right as they'd been approaching the front gates of Orgrimmar, more out of sheer dumb luck than anything else; he'd been riding back from the little village the Darkspear set up on the coast, and had come upon them attempting to convince the guards to let them pass a message, presumably onto him. The guards visibly bristle at her presence, but she merely waits patiently for his response, her own guards standing at attention and the flagbearer fighting not to fidget nervously. There is a white flag in one hand, but the banner they carry in the other (ragged but clean, stitched up and faded and lovingly put back together from scraps by careful hands) bears the painted image of half a humanoid face, a mask perhaps, accented by arrows and dark feathers. It's by no means any faction he's heard of or seen. He doesn't say as much, not wanting to offend something that could easily just be a scourge offshoot, but he doesn't appear to have to.

"What is it that you want?" one of the guards asks warily. It's the same one who had wanted to strangle him, and she's not leaving her post but her hand is firm around her spear, ready to defend at a moment's notice.

"We wish to speak with your Warchief," she replies. "We wish to extend the hand of friendship and if possible, pledge our allegiance to the Horde." Thrall quirks an eyebrow at this, surprised. A forward statement, that. She glances towards him, assessing; probably trying to figure out if he's the one they're meant to be appealing to, here. The armor is probably what gave him away.

"What use do you have for an alliance with a faction an entire sea away from you?" he asks, not unkindly. Especially your former enemy, he does not say. The emissary swallows and seems to dig her heels into the ground below her tattered shoes.

"The Forsaken seek friends and safe harbor here," she replies. "Just as we can give you the same in Lordaeron." Thrall pauses and thinks it over for a moment. He doubts they're some offshoot of the Scourge; the gesture is too sincere, the request too desperate. He does not deny that there is something about them that sends a prickle of tension up his spine, something about them that grates just enough for to be unsettling. The elements whisper warnings of trickery from creatures like these, stuck in a half-life with nothing much to lose, but their existence doesn't seem to be an easy or happy one, and he knows that the elements tend to take black and white stances on matters such as these. They often took some convincing if something didn't quite line up with their absolutes.

"We will consider it," he says after some time has passed. The emissary mostly succeeds in containing her relief and keeping her composure.

"Thank you," she says, politely curtseying, dark robes clutched delicately in her sharpened fingers. A noticeable amount of his guard seem confused at the motion, the very idea of it incomprehensibly foreign. "We will return to our camp, then, until you give us the word." Thrall nods, humming his consent.

"Farewell, Warchief," she says, bowing her head.

"Take care," he replies, and surprises himself with how much he means it.

* * *

Predictably, when Thrall first brings it up to his council, not one of them is happy about it.

"How can we trust them?" Makhan asks, sharp and surprisingly direct with his intentions. No spells rise from his fist or mouth but Thrall can recognize the unseen crackle of energy beginning to gather around him. He supposes, out of all of them, Makhan trusts dark magic the least. "How do we know that the Scourge hasn't come for the Horde as well?" The room is relatively quiet, murmurs of assent circling around the table, until Kroshka breaks the quiet with an uncharacteristically soft voice.

"They deserve a chance," she says, her voice at about half the volume it usually was. "We should consider them," she adds, firmer this time. Tez'lipo looks at Kroshka a little exasperatedly, but not nearly as much as Makhan, who has carefully schooled his expression into one that doesn't immediately scream, "I'm going to murder you in cold blood with my bare hands." It's probably not as successful as he hopes.

"This shouldn't even be a _question_ ," he asserts. "They are dark creatures of dark magicks. We have no reason to trust them, let alone _ally_ ourselves with them."

"We aren't so much different on that matter, ourselves," Kroshka points out, guarded, red eyes narrowed and gritted teeth glinting. "If they broke from the shackles of the Scourge as we did the Legion, then how are we to say that we're too good for them?" Makhan's expression shows no visible changes and yet a dark, quiet sort of fury passes over him like storm clouds. They stare each other down for a breath too long, neither backing down.

"We should at least consider their proposal," Balmani says, breaking the tension at least for the moment. "See what good can come of it, if any. What is your opinion on this matter, Warchief?" she asks, firmly placing attention back on him. Wordlessly, one right after the other, they look to him, waiting for his decision, each of their expressions carefully guarded.

"Let's at least take the time to look over all aspects of this," Thrall says slowly, choosing his words carefully. "It took them a lot of courage to walk right up to the gates of Orgrimmar and ask to be let in. We owe them that much, at least." Balmani nods in agreement, and Makhan is barely hiding a petty grimace.

The rest of that first meeting finishes with the expected bumps and bruises, along with a few more that he honestly should have expected. But they get through it, and that's the important thing to consider, he supposes. The next couple go a little bit better, but that's probably less because of his councilors coming around and more that so much happens so quickly that they're too exhausted to try and fight it as hard as they normally would. What happens as follows is that one: the Darkspear lose the Echo Isles in a last-minute betrayal from one of their own, two: more Forsaken emissaries arrive on the doorstep of both Thunderbluff and the newly constructed Sen'jin village on the coast, and three: the Druids succeed with building a second world tree, for better or worse.

The first two he's neck-deep in right as soon as they happen, receiving messages from Vol'jin first about Zalazane's treachery and asking for his people to be cared for, and the latter they discover long after it had happened.

The Darkspear's already-small numbers shrink further still in the wake of their betrayal, fleeing the Echo Isles before they could fall under the sway of the mutinous witch doctor. This is another cut into Vol'jin's still-healing wounds, the hurt from the death of his father not even scabbed over.

"We knew this was going t' happen," he tells Thrall, voice hoarse. "When we were young. We both had visions of this. Just." He pauses, trying not to choke. "Just didn't think it was set in stone." It's nighttime in Grommash Hold, closer to morning than not when Vol'jin arrived with a throng of displaced Darkspear in tow. The sky is still very much dark, but not quite the total inky blackness of night, paling with the creeping arrival of the sun. Thrall hadn't even been sleeping when he'd arrived, staying up a bit later than he'd originally intended to converse with Jaina over the gossip stones.

(He tells the guards that arrive at his door to wake him and instead find him already awake that he'd been having trouble sleeping, and it's only a half-lie. This does not assuage the guilt and embarrassment pooling in his stomach at nearly being caught.)

He and Vol'jin are in the war room, a smaller room off to the side of the throne room, and it's just the two of them and two Kor'kron, a couple more roaming the halls but the majority of them Thrall had ordered to help make accommodations for Vol'jin's people. The only source of light is a lone torch, not bothering to light the other ones when it was just going to be the two of them. Truthfully, they didn't really know each other that well yet; not really. They worked together when needed, sure, and worked together well at that, each complimenting each other's strengths and covering each other's weaknesses, but they hadn't really spent much time together outside of battle or politics. Even this isn't outside that realm, but this had been made much more personal with how vicious a treachery it had been.

"What happened, exactly?" he asks. He'd been given a basic understanding of it prior to this, but none of the details.

"Didn't get to look at him for too long before he started enslaving us, but. Think he's being mounted by a loa. Not one of ours; probably one skulking around the island long before we got there."

Vol'jin goes quiet for a bit, thoughtful, and Thrall isn't sure what to say to this, at first, reaching at straws.

"Can he be reasoned with?" he asks hesitantly. It's not the wisest thing he could have said, and he realizes this immediately when Vol'jin turns and his eyes are burning with anger.

"Don't you think I would've done that already if I could?" Vol'jin snaps, revealing large, sharpened teeth with an angry smirk. "He was my best friend. What could I have done to stop this that I hadn't done already?" Thrall's mouth shuts with an audible click, and the room goes agonizingly silent. Vol'jin's anger melts away wax-quick, leaving fatigue in its place. He'd always been a moody creature; at least for as long as Thrall knew him. That might not have been a fair measure of him, granted, seeing as the two of them have only known each other in times of turmoil.

"M' sorry," Vol'jin tells him quietly. "I just. I'm so tired of this."

"I understand, Vol'jin," Thrall tells him gently. "I know."

"Why can't we just live in peace," he mumbles a little wistfully, and Thrall's not sure if that was meant to be out loud, the troll staring into the middle distance as he says this. Thrall bites back a bitter chuckle and doesn't say what they're both thinking: _We haven't earned it yet. We've both come from empires of war and blood; we have not yet earned the privilege of peace._

Vol'jin however, does not, laughing grimly in the dark seemingly at nothing.

The sun is just starting to crawl over the horizon when they finally finish their plans- for accommodations here, for the additional construction of the village on the coast so the Darkspear weren't trapped within the walls of a city and culture that wasn't theirs, and for the counterattack- and they're both tired, obviously, but things are a little easier, now, between them. There's a comradery that wasn't there before, and Thrall can see it in the thankfulness of the troll's words, the mischievous gleam returning to his expression before too long. Their hands brush more than once over the map on the table, plotting out their strategies, and Vol'jin doesn't recoil like he normally would, fussy as a cat. At some point he makes himself at home, stretching out his long legs under the table, one of feet next to Thrall's with nary any space between them. Thrall is a little surprised that he, himself, is not recoiling, either. When he finally is able to rest that day, sleep comes easily for the first time in days. He hopes it comes easy to Vol'jin as well.

In order to accommodate the sudden population jump, he furthers construction in the western part of the city, plotting out buildings around the trickling stream flowing through there. No one's really too happy about this- they had just about finished everything before this, and it'd taken them months, over a year at this point- but there's not really anything to be done about it. The Darkspear need a place to live, and they're Horde. Orgrimmar will make one for them. It's that simple.

The orcs don't view this as charity in any measure, as humans would; it's not that it's the right thing to do, it's just something that needs to be done. The Darkspear are Horde, and the Horde protects its own. It's nothing more complicated than that. And besides, it's not as if the Darkspear don't lend a hand in the construction of their own homes. They make a point of it to, both in Orgrimmar and in Sen'jin.

Vol'jin decides to stay in the city for the time being. He trusts his old master to watch the village well enough, and besides that, he wants to keep an eye on his people in the city. Wants to see how this Horde really works, as he says. The village is only a couple hours' ride away over land, and even faster by wyvern, so there's no real worry if he does have to head back home quickly. He does appreciate the Valley of Spirits being there as a place to lay his head, however.

This whole thing takes up so much of Thrall's time and attention that he almost doesn't notice the nightelves' pointed retreat away from the edge of Ashenvale. It's rather strange, however, because there's hardly any sign of them anywhere, anymore. He makes sure not to let the Warsong move further into the forest than they already have, not wanting to upset their agreement with the Kaldorei, even if that upsets the Warsong, but it's just so odd to suddenly not have eyes in the forest on them at all times.

Then, scouting reports from the other end of Ashenvale finally come in; off the coast, in the horizon, suddenly appeared the silhouette of a truly massive tree. The druids must have succeeded, then. He wonders if Tyrande allowed them or if they did this of their own accord. Probably the latter, he thinks, a half-hearted, bitter smile curling the edges of his mouth. They hadn't really directly communicated by any means since Hyjal, admittedly, but he does hope she's alright.

He doesn't miss, however, the Forsaken's further attempts to warm up to the Horde as a whole. Shortly after the betrayal, more emissaries appeared, offering their services to the Darkspear as a show of goodwill and sympathy. The Darkspear, being the suspicious bunch that they are and rightfully so when faced with a combination of one their worst enemies and a dark, ancient magic they'd just barely managed to sever themselves from, react surprisingly calmly; they thank them for the offer, but firmly send them on their way.

The Forsaken have more luck with the Tauren, strangely enough, who welcome them in like they're taking in strays from the cold. It isn't too long before he starts receiving messages from Thunder Bluff, specifically from their druids, who apparently took it upon themselves personally to aid the Forsaken in their plight to restore their humanity.

 _The Horde is nothing if not safe harbor for the lost and the cursed,_ the Archdruid writes in his surprisingly small, neat print. _In my time spent with the Forsaken, I have only seen an unfortunate people struck with a fate worse than death who only seek to cure themselves of it. They are no Scourge, by any means; they deserve all the help we can give them._

Thrall does not deny that the Forsaken don't really have anything to offer them; sure, a safe link back to the Eastern Kingdoms could prove useful, but how useful is it, really, when they had left in the first place to cut themselves off from the plague, not to mention the humans and the Alliance. However, he doesn't deny that the Forsaken desperately need an ally, either, and that the Horde could be that ally. So when the question is brought up again to his council, he says:

"We should give them a chance, at the very least." At this, the looks he receives are tired and wary, but they don't argue with him.

"If that is what you feel is best, Warchief," Makhan replies, brow furrowed more out of fatigue than anything else. He rubs his temples with one hand, sighing.

"Make sure you tell dem that," Vol'jin says to his right, hooking a thumb over his shoulder to, presumably, where the emissaries have made their camp outside the walls of the city. "Gettin' a little sad watching them perk up every time a guard walks past," he continues, smirking. Thrall does his best to glare at him, but it's clear, to Vol'jin at least, that he's trying not to laugh. Vol'jin kicks him under the table. It's playful, mostly.

All the same, the emissaries are all too happy to be let in, finally, even if the city guard still looks wary of them. They've grown reasonably used to them by this point, but there's a bit of a difference between seeing them on a daily basis outside the city walls, and seeing the undead roaming the city streets. The common folk are a bit wary as well, but if their hesitance bothers the Forsaken in question, it doesn't show. He realizes with a strange sort of sympathy that they're probably used to it by now. Nonetheless, they make themselves quite at home in the keep, descending upon the quarters given to them with gusto.

Admittedly, Thrall wasn't expecting to have the guest quarters of the keep taken up so quickly. He knows it's desperation, mostly, that drove the Forsaken into the arms of the Horde, but it's still surprisingly pleasant to see other factions vying for their favor rather than condemning them. It's probably a pleasant surprise to them, as well, to be welcomed in like this. Still, should this go well, he should probably look into setting up a proper embassy.

The emissary, Margaret Appleton, is surprisingly _not_ out of place when sitting at his council table. She almost pointedly chooses to sit beside Balmani, who pulls out a chair for her, and glances at everyone sitting around the table, skeletal hands folded placidly in front of her. This, unfortunately, puts her on Makhan's other side, but if she senses his suspicion she doesn't show it. Makhan to his credit keeps it to himself for the most part, knowing exactly when to keep himself in check. She tips her head at him, and Thrall's come to understand that, without the luxury of having lips, that's meant to be a smile. Makhan returns the gesture.

She lays out their suggested terms in remarkably short order, though he supposes at this point, they've had months to prepare for this first meeting. If she's nervous, she does a good job of hiding it, keeping her shoulders back and her head held up high. Obviously, going through and finalizing the terms isn't nearly as quick. The first meeting goes surprisingly alright, but it is, without a doubt, the first of many; it actually surprises him how much the Forsaken ask for, and what they offer in return. It's a bold move on their part, though he suspects that they had figured that this first meeting would make or break any potential alliances between them. Better to have their intentions laid out before them right from the start than say that they didn't try their hardest, he supposes.

* * *

Time marches on, as it is wont to do, and it isn't too long until finally, _finally_ , the base construction of the city is fully completed. It's a little strange now, to go outside the keep and not hear the constant noise of building, the work of wood and iron.

He tries to keep in touch with Jaina the best he can, and it's a little easier with one of his major concerns taken care of for the time being. However, another major concern- the Forsaken and their possible place within the Horde- seems to be making things harder for them both. He had assumed that the Forsaken, in their going up to everyone's doorstep and ringing the bell, had gone to Theramore, as well. Jaina had not even heard of them until her own scouts had come back with reports of the undead somehow having made it to Kalimdor. Apparently, they hadn't even bothered with her.

She contacts him in a panic, whispering frantically into the gossip stone as if she had left in the middle of whatever she was doing to tell him this, and given that it was the middle of the day and the sound of other people talking was in the background, this is entirely likely. When she had called, he had just happened to be in his chambers at the time, out of coincidence more than anything else. He can't even remember why he had gone there in the first place, reason lost upon hearing the hum of the rune stone resonate through the room.

"Thrall," she whispers, a little muffled like she's cupping her hand around her mouth. "There is something extremely important I have to tell you, that you need to know immediately."

"What's wrong?" he asks, anxiety spiking, thoughts racing to fill in the gaps with horrible possibilities.

"My scouts discovered a Scourge caravan travelling through the Barrens," she tells him gravely, fear lacing her breath. She's moving, he thinks, there's rustling and the background noise of people talking is slowly getting quieter. "There's not that many of them, but this can't be the only group. We have to take care of this as quickly as possible. I don't know how they could've gotten over here without us noticing them for so long."

"How many exactly?" he asks, already calculating what they would need to take care of this, how quickly they could gather forces and when.

"No more than a dozen, at least in the group my scouts had found," she explains. "We think they're ghouls, but we're not sure; their behavior was extremely bizarre."

"How so?"

"They seemed to actually have some kind of coherence and cognizance, but none of them bore the armor of a death knight," she continues, voice strained. "A few of them were holding banners, but it didn't look like any Scourge regalia we've seen before." Thrall blinks. Pauses for a minute.

"Jaina, could you- did your scouts happened to see what was on it?" he asks carefully.

"Um," she starts, swallowing, trying to remember. "They didn't get too close but from what they could see of it, it looked like some kind of face with arrows sticking out of it. Why? What of it?"

Thrall takes a deep breath.

"Jaina, I believe your scouts have come across the Forsaken," he explains. "They're undead that've splintered away from the Scourge and formed their own forces to combat them."

Jaina went silent for a solid minute, and every second that passed was agony, until finally, Thrall could take no more and continued, despite her shock.

"They had come to Kalimdor to try and curry favor with whoever they could; I had. I had assumed that you would be included in that."

"…Did-" She hiccups. "-Did they come to you?" Jaina asks after another moment, voice cracking. He hesitated in answering.

"Yes," he replies finally. "And the Darkspear, and the Bloodhoof." It was silent again, the words 'but not to you' going unsaid, but hanging in the air, just the same. She's finally gotten to a quiet room, it seemed, because no noise lingered in the background save for her muffled, uneven breaths. All he can hear is that, and it's somehow deafening, clenching his jaw too tight while anxiety's choking fingers worked their way around his lungs and heart.

"They don't mean us any harm, I'm pretty sure," he says finally, dragging the words out of himself. "They just were looking to find friends where they could."

"Well, yes," she replies sarcastically, voice thick with held back tears. "And obviously they're not going to come back to the people that abandoned them."

"Jaina, no," he starts. "You couldn't have known this would happen." Jaina inhales shakily on the other end, the sound gutting him.

"I didn't-" She cuts off, sniffling. She catches her breath, trying again. "I didn't really try that hard to stop him, either, did I," she continues. "All- all I did was just-" She cuts off again, interrupted by her own tears. "-walk away. I didn't even t-try to talk to him. If I had just-"

"Jaina, _stop_ ," he interrupts, unable to take any more. "You couldn't have stopped Arthas. You couldn't have known this would happen. It's not your fault." At the mention of _his_ name, Jaina goes quiet, save the shuddering breaths he could hear coming through the line. Neither of them spoke for an uncomfortably long moment, and Thrall just lingers on his end, unable to speak but unable to sever himself from this. Irrationally, he feels like his throat was closing up, worry tightening its grip on him. Eventually, Jaina speaks again, after having calming herself enough to be coherent.

"I appreciate it, but," she says, voice flat with the sort of apathy that only comes from emotional exhaustion. "I don't think I can really believe you right now."

"Jaina," he says, again, as if saying her name enough times, mumbling it like a prayer, would somehow get through to her. "It's not your fault. I know you. I know that if you had known about this, you would have done everything in your power to prevent this or help." His heart is big and hot in his closed-up throat, pounding rapid-fire against its constriction.

"You didn't abandon them," he tells her. "You just didn't know. Believe me. Please." Jaina is silent, still, and it kills him.

"Jaina," he says again, begs, a holy word falling from his lips. "Please."

"…I'll try," she replies, finally. Relief floods through him. "That's the best I can do for right now."

"That's fine," he says, a little too quickly. "That's- that's fine." She pauses, breathing in slowly.

"…Would it be alright if I came to visit you later this evening?" she asks softly. "Don't worry, I won't kidnap you again. We can just, um. Meet on the beach outside the city. I can meet you there, rather."

"Yes," he replied. "That's fine. That's just fine. Please, just. Don't blame yourself for things that were never yours to control." Jaina snorts quietly, and he knows it's a bit hypocritical coming from him. He knows. It's also how he recognizes it in other people, Jaina included.

"Just humor me, here," he asks, laughter creeping into his voice as the tension finally works itself from his body.

"Alright," she relents. "I'll try to, anyway." Thrall sighs, relaxing gradually.

"I should get back," she says. "I'll see you tonight, alright?"

"You weren't really specific when you said where. How are we supposed to meet up?" he asks.

"Don't you worry about that; I'll be able to find you, wherever you go," she replies, a half-hearted attempt at humor. Her words don't quite have the intended effect, he thinks; he can't quite laugh.

"See you then," he tells her. The line goes dead, and he becomes acutely aware of his own pulse, resonating through the stone in his hand. Her words remain with him the rest of the day, warmth prickling through his fingers.

The rest of the day is spent with a low grade anxiety buzzing in the background, worried about her current state, mingling with an off-and-on anticipation of seeing her in the flesh for the first time in months. He hasn't seen her since- since she kidnapped him, actually.

Shortly after supper- after somehow convincing his guards to let him leave for the evening- he makes his way to the shoreline, moonlight gleaming overhead. The sky is clear and the stars are bright, the ocean a comforting white noise on the edge of his periphery. True to her word, he doesn't wander around for too long before she appears, the very visage of the land warping and tearing a hole for her to delicately step through, announcing her presence with soundless blue light and dissipating once her feet touch the ground. She's not quite as animated as she usually is, slow and sluggish as she brushes the dust off of her cloak and gets herself in order. There are pronounced bags under her eyes, and while they're not bloodshot, they're still a little pink, like they were just recently.

"Glad you could make it," he tells her sincerely. She smiles briefly, a shy little thing hidden behind her hand while she tucks her hair behind her ear. She doesn't reply for a moment.

"Thank you," she says. "For making time for me."

"It's really no trouble," he assures her.

"I know how busy it gets," she points out. "And I know I haven't really… been there, as of late." She sounds drained. "I haven't been there for you as much as I should have, and I'm sorry."

Her words from before linger, still, and warmth pools in his ribs.

"You've done far more for me than you give yourself credit for," he tells her, the words oddly heavy on his tongue. She doesn't quite grimace at this; she probably tried to hold it back and did for the most part, but couldn't quite help the first bit of it slipping through.

"If you say so," she allows. "Shall we, then?" He nods, and they start down the shoreline. It's some time more before they speak again, taking solace in the simple peace of the ocean lapping gently at the shore, in the light of the two moons rippling on the surface of the churning sea.

"I thought about it for a while," Jaina starts, breaking the silence between them. "It's funny, actually- after I came back from talking with you, and told my councilors how it would be safer to wait on planning an attack until we gathered more information, suddenly all they wanted to do was talk about improving relations with Orgrimmar, and work on the parameters for the spell shield." She smirks, a frustrated twist of chapped, pink lips. "I'd been trying to get it approved for weeks. It's incredible, really." Thrall rubs his temples, a headache starting to brew.

"How terribly convenient," Thrall mutters.

"Isn't it, though," Jaina adds, salty. "It's not enough that we were very nearly destroyed by something that saw us as little more than insects and could've slain everyone with a single thought; no, there has to be a constant fear of annihilation to get this truce to work." Thrall chuckles grimly.

"Well if it works, it works," he replies, bemused. Jaina laughs.

"Anyway, um," she starts again. "We did end up getting more scouting reports back after I had talked to you, and confirmed what you said. My councilors are, uh," she trails off.

"They're not too happy, I take it?" he asks, tone apologetic.

"Oh yes, obviously- but about what, I'm not sure," she replies. "I can't tell what they're the most upset over: the fact that Lordaeron's natives never left their homeland even though they shuffled their mortal coils, that they started courting the Horde without our knowledge and the Horde began reciprocating, or that they didn't even bother to try to contact us at all, even though I'm almost completely certain that if they actually did come to our doorstep, my councilors would have shooed them away."

"Honestly, they're just- they're so transparent, and fickle, and are only just now considering this alliance to be a serious investment now that they've realized that we will probably die without it." Jaina stares listlessly at the ground and sighs.

"The point I'm trying to make is… even if this doesn't work out, somehow, between Theramore and the Horde and the Forsaken, or everyone and everyone, really…" She trails off, ponders a bit on what to say.

"I'm going to try harder," she decides on. "I'm going to work harder to make this work, so if it doesn't, I can least say that I tried. I'm not going to just leave everything to you while my councilors try and hold me hostage in that god-damned tower with arbitrary political nonsense while innocent people suffer from our indecision."

"So here's what I'm going to do," she continues. "I've started drawing up some plans on an Inn I want built in the marsh. It can be a way-stop for everyone, regardless of faction. It's a small step, I know, but small steps are better than none, at this point. Besides, it's only fair. We weren't the first ones in the marsh, and we shouldn't just ignore the ones that actually _were_ here first." She takes a breath, turns and looks him in the eye.

"So, what do you think?" she asks, biting her lip. "Do you think it'll work?"

Affection for his friend surges, along with a peculiar sort of ache that blooms under his breast, unfurling under her tired, gentle gaze, strangely sweet for all that it throbs. He manages a nod.

"I think that sounds like a great idea," he tells her, and another shy little half-smile graces her lips. Her face comes into focus- her smile seems brighter, somehow, eyes bluer, and he can't quite swallow down the dry heat trickling up his throat.

* * *

Surprisingly, for the next couple of months, things actually go according to plan.

The barrier is planned and erected with little resistance (unsurprising once it became clear that the forsaken's existence gave everyone a nice little reminder that the Legion and the Scourge are really only a hop and a skip away, ocean or no ocean), and the inn goes up at the side of a little dirt road trailing through the marsh. Jaina had expressed interest in widening this road, to hopefully make it a main trade route between Orgrimmar and Theramore, and this, too, happened without much resistance.

The Forsaken continue their courtship with the Horde, easing themselves into a niche carefully carved out just for them and taking root. Despite himself, Makhan takes a shine to the ambassador, Appleton, who more than once comes to his aid in debates with the others. They seem to have similar methods of achieving their ends, as well as similar ends themselves, the once-ghoul just as sharp and calculating as he is. It's probably why she was picked for the job.

Appleton orchestrates a visit from the Lady Sylvanas herself- with approval from the rest of the council, of course- one wherein all the leaders of the Horde would sit down at the same table to welcome her into the fold. Now, this one makes everyone a little nervous, and for good reason. The Forsaken are loathe to let their queen wander into the fortress of a faction they'd previously hated and were just now starting to get to know, and the Horde isn't too pleased about the leader of faction they'd previously hated just waltzing in like nothing happened between the moment the dark portal opened and now.

They arrange for the Lady Windrunner to arrive via mage portal, this being yet another of Appleton's many talents, apparently. The weather is well enough on the day she arrives; the sky is clear, and the sun is beating down on them like they've come to expect in Durotar. Thrall and a few of his personal guard are standing outside the main gate, waiting for Appleton and her assistants to construct the portal. She lays down the rune work herself, carefully tracing lines into the earth below them with a long staff and the large crystal attached to one end, and with the help of her two aides, conjures the portal into existence. The aides maintain the portal while she steps through, and after a few minutes, she returns with Windrunner in tow, helping her keep her balance as she steps through the portal.

Sylvanas Windrunner is about as intimidating as he expected she'd be. She's a fair bit taller than any of her guard, and while he realizes that this is almost certainly because of her being a high elf, she's still a fair bit taller than high elf he's seen. She's skinny as a whip with long limbs, long fingers, and with wiry muscle rippling under dusty, grey skin. This, coupled with her hair, coarse and drained of color, gave her an unearthly appearance. But the most intimidating thing about her had to be her eyes, red flames burning out the furnace of their sockets. This, coupled with a withering glare and a grimace that revealed a hint of sharp teeth, was what made a prickle of unease work its way up his spine. But he does his best to be cordial, as always; after all, he presents a rather intimidating visage himself, he realizes, towering over her with ease.

"Welcome," he says in Common, and she can't hide her surprise completely, glare losing a bit of its bite. "It's good to finally meet you, Lady Windrunner." He extends a hand for her to shake, and this surprises her, too, it seems, taking it tentatively.

"Thank you," she replies softly, shaking his hand. He tries to be gentler, aware of the strength in his grip, but she meets him with a death grip, fingers wound tight around his. He cracks a smile at this. "It's good to be here, Warchief."

He and his guard escort her to Grommash Hold, and he takes note of the various buildings they pass as they make their way through the city. It took a long time to get Orgrimmar to this point, and he's proud of it, proud of his people for building it. Sylvanas doesn't reply back all that much, but she listens intently, looking to what he points out with a genuine curiosity. Appleton helps with this as well, adding stories of her own experiences with the city to the mix. It seems to help solidify this for Sylvanas, make it that much more real.

He's not sure what she was expecting when they finally reach the hold, but this seems to impress her the most, a massive fortress of stone and clay built in record time, and as he leads her up the front steps and into the hold, she examines it a little more obviously, looking around the high ceiling. They already have a chair set up for her in the war room; by the time they get there, Cairne, Vol'jin, and his councilors have already arrived and gotten comfortable. Cairne pulls out her chair for her, easily done as it's set next to his, and gestures for her to sit with a wave of his massive hand. She takes it, thanking him quietly, and her guard takes their place behind her, Appleton sitting on her other side.

There's a moment where Thrall gets a little nervous; Vol'jin and Sylvanas regard each other from across the table, and it feels distinctly like two dangerous predators sizing each other up. He knows the evils that the trolls and elves have done to each other across the generations. He knew that there was very little chance of their first meeting not being nerve-wracking for everyone involved. But to his pleasant surprise, Vol'jin backs down first from their impromptu stare-down, breaking into a crooked grin. Sylvanas' gaze softens, and she doesn't quite smile back, but she nods her head at him, acknowledging it.

"You know, Warchief," she starts quietly. "When my ambassador had come back to the Undercity regaling tales of your kindness and courtesy, I had assumed she'd been exaggerating. Orcish warlords haven't really known for their compassion." Thrall chuckles, and when Appleton quickly translates this to Orcish for the rest of the table, Cairne snorts and Vol'jin snickers loudly. "I'm glad to have been mistaken."

"You're lookin' at the nicest fucker here," Vol'jin says, gesturing to Thrall with a wide sweep of his hand. Sylvanas looks to Appleton again, and Appleton, despite looking exasperated with his crudeness, translates it effortlessly. Sylvanas allows herself a smirk at this, and for the first time in a very long time, he thinks that maybe things are going to work out- that things are actually going to be alright.

* * *

They do end up making a better memorial for Grom.

Thrall re-finds the canyon that he'd died in, easier now that the night elves have for the most part relocated to Teldrassil, and asks permission for a monument to be erected where he fell. Tyrande, surprisingly, gives it. It's the first time they've communicated since the tree first fell, and he's admittedly a little shocked that his messenger actually managed to make it through without being shot at or killed.

 _Anyone who could down a pit lord single-handedly deserves to be called a hero_ , Tyrande writes back. Thrall wonders if it would be worth it to send back a "thank you" or if that would be too risky, considering the danger risked sending it the first time around. They were not enemies anymore, true, but they certainly weren't friendly. Or at least, the Horde and Darnassus as a whole weren't friendly.

They end up constructing a large, stone monolith, with the runes of his name carved on all sides, and a message that Thrall writes himself. It is far more difficult choosing what words to leave behind than he could possibly imagine. In the end, he chooses to leave only a few, but Grom probably wouldn't have wanted a manifesto to his memory, anyway. He would've kept it short, sweet, and to the point, and so, Thrall did.

They have a ceremony commemorating Grom, and their cities, and the peace they've achieved with his blood and others, to which Thrall invites all to attend. Very nearly the entire Warsong clan attends, including Kroshka, proudly wearing her clan's emblem and colors. Cairne comes, and brings damn near the whole Bloodhoof tribe. Thrall hadn't any idea that he'd had so many descendants, but his eldest is here, Baine, along with his wife and children, and all his siblings, and their spouses and children. Vol'jin follows suit, bringing his wives and their children, as well as what seems like the whole Darkspear tribe. Both of his wives seem to be hell-bent on embarrassing him, from what he can tell, gossiping with Cairne while he dandles one of his grandchildren on his knee and laughs while Vol'jin laughs as well but looks at them pleadingly. Tez'lipo and Balmani are lingering nearby, the troll doing her best not to laugh but failing miserably, and Balmani making no attempt to hide her chuckling whatsoever. Jaina comes late, because of course she does, arriving with a small guard squadron who look as if they would very much like not to be here, but they're here, and that's what counts. Curiously, there seems to be night elf dutifully following her around, no matter where she goes.

Sylvanas does not attend; he understands. She's across the ocean, after all, and does send her usual representative in her place, along with a few others. Margaret Appleton takes her usual place among his councilors, along with her guard, chatting animatedly with Makhan, she wearing the Forsaken's colors, and Makhan wearing the Shadowmoon's.

Tyrande attends. This was not something he had expected at all.

He had sent an invitation yes, as a show of good faith and friendship, but he honestly hadn't expected her to attend. She arrives with a throng of sentinels in tow, as well as Shandris Feathermoon. She's as radiant as he remembers her being, shining with a fierce beauty that pierces through all that gaze upon her. He supposes being the living avatar of their goddess probably had something to do with that.

"It is good to see you," she tells him, taking both of his hands in hers. Relief washes through him.

"And you as well," he replies. "Thank you, again, for allowing me to do this." She nods her head.

"We must do all that we can for peace," she says, and it would be somber if not for the warmth emanating from her expression. He smiles, despite himself.

With Tyrande's arrival, they start the ceremony, lighting candles around the monolith and leaving offerings there- small trinkets, mostly, with assumedly personal meaning, and Thrall recites the eulogy that he'd practiced many times but still could not get through without his eyes getting watery. Miracle of miracles, he manages to stave off the tears until after the baby-faced shaman lights the bonfire they'd built behind the monolith, in replacement of the pyre Grom could not have. If the Kor'kron noticed their Warchief staring silently into the fire while he blinked tears out of his eyes, they did not say a damn thing. It hurt, still, far more than he'd realized. Grom carved out a space for him to be, and Thrall still felt out of place, nearly two years of him being gone.

Afterwards, they have their feast. It had been tense at first, at the start of the day, but now, people were talking, and laughing, and enjoying themselves. He can hardly believe it's happening.

Jaina finds him about three-quarters of the way through it, long after the sun has gone down and the only lights are that of the bonfire and the torches temporarily set up around the area. It hasn't really quieted down at all, especially now that drink has been available for a while. Speaking of, Jaina is holding two cups in one hand and a bottle of whiskey under one arm as she tugs at his arm to get his attention.

"Look what I got for us," she says conspiratorially, and he can't tell if her cheeks are rosy or if the warm glow of the fire is making them look that way. "Managed to sneak away from Pained, finally." She looks over her shoulder quickly, making sure of that, no doubt. Pained seems to be preoccupied with arm-wrestling the guard that wanted to strangle him.

"Oh, is that the name of your new shadow?" Thrall teases.

"Hey, shut up," she replies, grinning even as he laughs in her face. "Do you want some of this or not?"

"Of course," he says, and doesn't even finish before she's pouring them each a cup. "So who is she, anyway?"

"That would be the bodyguard Tyrande assigned to guard me during our stint at Hyjal," she replies. Thrall thinks about this a moment.

"…Has she literally been following you around since Hyjal?" he asks. She grimaces exaggeratedly, nodding.

"Apparently, since Tyrande never _technically_ relieved her of duty, she saw fit to just come home with me, no matter how many times I've told her that she's allowed to leave," she explains, exasperated and fond. "She's nice enough, she's just…"

"Relentless?" Thrall guesses.

"Well, that's one word for it," Jaina mutters, grinning when he breaks into laughter. "Come on, now, we can't let this go to waste." She hands him his cup. He's tempted to tease further but lets it slide.

"Alright, cheers!" she exclaims, clinking her cup against his before downing it in one shot. He follows suit, the burn of the whiskey trailing all the way down.

"Well, we did it," she says. The profundity of her words seems to come over her slowly, eyes going wide with the realization. "We kept the peace. Holy hell, we did it."

"We did it," Thrall agrees, and when Jaina grins at him, wide and affectionate, his pulse stutters.

"We started out a little rocky, yes," she admits. "But we've managed to pull it off for this long." She looks at him for a moment, strangely nervous, and he can't quite stop looking at the firelight reflecting off of her irises, both anxious and excited at once.

"I'm glad it was you that I did this with," she tells him sincerely. She weaves her fingers through his the best she can, and his pulse jumps again.

"I'm glad it was you, too," he replies, reciprocating in kind as gently as she can. She grins at him again, open and warm, squeezing his hand while the firelight dances across her face, and his heart threatens to burst from his ribs.

He thinks- he thinks that this whole thing, between them, between the Alliance and Horde and Nightelves and Forsaken and whoever else comes to be part of them, whoever it may be- he thinks that it'll be alright. They'll make room for whoever wants to be here. They'll work out just fine.


End file.
